FunPlus Phoenix, also known as FPX, won their first major in VALORANT at the VALORANT Masters 2: Copenhagen, defeating APAC team PaperRex in a nail-biting 5-game series. Riot allowed the enigmatic fans to support their teams from the semi-final bracket onwards at the Copenhagen Masters, the first VALORANT major to feature a crowd.
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FPX’s Tournament Run
FPX drew into the group stages with Thailand’s winners XERXIA Esports, Korea’s DRX Vision Strikers and Japan’s Northeption. The EMEA team were the odd ones out in their group, being the only team who didn’t win their respective regions’ VALORANT Stage 2 domestic tournament. They initially used a substitute for the duration of the group stage and the first round of the playoffs, with Alliance Gaming’s star player SEIDER temporarily out on loan. This happened as a result of FPX’s sentinal player SUYGETSU’s inability to apply for a visa in time for the group stage.
In total, FPX participated in the most rounds of any other team at a VALORANT Champions Tour Masters competition. FPX had to overcome great obstacles in order to win, but they were tenacious and determined enough to succeed. They won their opening match of the major against XERXIA and advanced to play DRX, who had just destroyed Northeption 2-0. They were forced to play Northeption in the Elimination round after losing to DRX in the winners’ match. Northeption had earlier eliminated the Thai team from the competition by defeating XERXIA in the losers’ bracket. They eventually beat Northeption to qualify for the playoffs as the group’s second seed.
After being matched up against English team and EMEA rivals FNATIC in the playoff round, they stumbled to a 2-0 loss, which brought back memories of their loss to the same team in the EMEA Stage 2 grand final. This forced FPX into the lower bracket run for the second time in the tournament. The lower bracket run drew them with Guild Esports, another EMEA rival. But this game was just in time for SUYGETSU to return to the helm, helping their team to a 2-1 win.
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They faced off against group-mates DRX for a the second time in the second round of the lower bracket. Although, this time they were triumphant, beating the Korean team 2-0. The third round of the lower bracket forced FPX to play against FNATIC again, who themselves faltered to a 2-0 loss to eventual grand finalists PaperRex. This series was when SUYGETSU really came to life on the big stage, carving out 72 kills over the course of three matches using only Killjoy and Viper. He led his team to the lower finals, after defeating FNATIC 2-1.
Their lower finals series was against OpTic Gaming, who were the VCT Masters champions at the time. SHAO, FPX’s initiator player, blew up in this series, posting a KDA of 68/49/23 over the course of the four matches. FPX easily won the series 3-1, making it to the Grand Final for the first time and defeating tournamet favourites along the way.
FPX’s Grand Final opponents were APAC’s PaperRex, who were the only undefeated team in the tournament leading upto the conclusion. Despite playing the most rounds in the history of VALORANT majors, FPX beat the pressure and overcame the outlandish playstyle of PRX and won the series 3-2, in front of a crowd that boasted 200,000 people.
“I can’t describe what it means to me,” FPX’s in-game leader ANGE1 said. “I want to say thank you to everyone who came here.”
